


Some People Belong Broken

by hypnoshatesme



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (seriously i think i covered the biggest ones but i beg you tell me what i missed), Angst, Depression, Gen, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Self-Hatred, also warning for it looking more like verse than prose but not actually being...either tbh, basically some character studyish thing, neither, pls tell me what to tag this as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24934204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypnoshatesme/pseuds/hypnoshatesme
Summary: Michael never felt quite right. His (un)becoming was a relief, in a way.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 31





	Some People Belong Broken

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know man I was trying to write a non-tma related poem, but it turned into me fucking up Michael Shelley's life.

Michael never felt quite right

He didn’t remember if there was ever a time before he felt like he did not belong

There was nothing wrong with his life, he knew

There was nothing missing, but there was a gaping hole missing something and it only grew with the years

And there was a wall, impenetrable, between himself and his life

Between him and himself

“You have everything. I don’t get why you are like this.”

He had

The problem was Michael

Michael was wrong.

He had a family

It was fine, had always been fine

He had no reason to complain

He never felt like he belonged

Michael was young when he realised, for the first time, that they looked better without him

Happier

Michael smiled, but it didn’t feel right

He wasn’t the one smiling

As he grew he didn’t know if he loved them or if he felt obligated to try doing so

Michael was a horrible person and he knew, and he hated himself for it

His family was always there and loved him

(Did they? Or was it a sense of obligation?)

But Michael never felt connected

He was floating

“You can talk to us about everything.”

Lies

And Michael lied, too, pretended

All he did was pretend, he thought

Michael did not know who he was

That he was

If he was

He had friends

Or maybe that wasn’t the right term

Michael realised, at some point, that he did not know its meaning

It was vague, too vague

It reminded him of himself and Michael did not like being reminded of himself

Michael was despicable and he did not want to think about himself but he could not not think about himself because Michael was away from everybody else

There was a barrier and he couldn’t break through and he couldn’t connect with anyone but himself

He couldn’t connect with himself, either

He wasn’t

He wasn’t surprised people left

Friendships weren’t for people who weren’t

You had to be a person to be a friend and Michael wasn’t

He was a floating, misshapen piece of a puzzle 

The puzzle did not exist

It never had and it never would

He talked too much, and too little, all at the same time

He did not belong

There were topics he couldn’t understand

All topics he couldn’t understand

The words had no meaning for him

Michael felt empty as he watched another friend leave

He hoped they found somebody better

Someone worthwhile 

He loved, but not right, not how he was supposed to

He knew he didn’t want to do what they wanted him to do, but he did

He knew he didn’t like their hands on his body, but he let them

Michael went away, after a while, in his head

He felt somewhat better like this, removed from a body he hated, that hated him

And at night, when he was alone, he’d roll up and cry, and sob, and hate himself because it was his fault and there was no reason for him to cry

He wasn’t allowed to feel sorry for himself for things that were his own fault

He knew he was the wrong one, knew this is what he should want

And he wanted to want it so desperately because he didn’t want to lose the person that came the closest to connect with him

It was cruel, really

He could nearly reach them, through the wall

Or maybe he only wished he could

Michael often confused dream and reality

But in the end, they always left

He wasn’t enough, wasn’t right

He was too much in all the wrong places

Passions misplaced in words and art, and nights spent trying to express it, express himself

It was too much, not what they wanted

They still left and Michael was so glad, relieved, breathed 

And he hated himself for it, because it was his fault, all of it, and he had no right to be happy

Michael was the wrong shape, there was nowhere for him, and he deserved it

He was a horrible person as he cried himself to sleep, drowning in self-pity, self-loathing, both

He couldn’t distinguish, maybe never had

Michael decided the least he could be was useful

He got a job he wasn’t in any way qualified for

And he made himself as useful as he could, because when he was used he felt the closest to being whole, to  _ being _

Michael barely left work, there was always work left from the others

He didn’t want to stop working because then the empty feeling came back

Didn’t want to go home, because home has no meaning for him

Because home was what the gaping void inside him - inside him? It was him. He was it - was craving, yearning, screaming for

It was maddening

Michael had a home

He had an apartment, small but cosy

Nice

Michael never had a home

Michael never would have a home

It was past midnight and he cried into his tea in the Archive’s break room

Tea used to be comfort, used to give him a semblance of the warmth he craved

Used to chase away the constant cold, even if only for a moment

Michael’s life was all about the short moments

They were being swallowed

Swallowed by himself, by the void, by what should  _ be _ him but wasn’t

Michael wasn’t

No matter how hard he tried, there was a block, a wall, a fortress, keeping him from being

From fitting in

From being right for anything

For anyone

His nails left red half-moons on his arm as he unclenched his hand from it and he hated himself

This was all he could do

It was pathetic

He was pathetic

And wrong

Too vague, shapeless

Too sharp, too loud

Voiceless

He took his saltened tea back to the pile of files waiting for him

Michael avoided sleep, because he avoided thought

Because he never felt so lonely and cold and displaced, not there and yet too painfully aware, too present than when he tried to sleep

He craved something but he didn’t know what

He craved hands but didn’t dare

Not when he didn’t crave them in the right way

Maybe he craved something else entirely, after all

Michael did not know and he did not dare knowing

Knowing would just make the realisation of how impossible it was to get more painful

Michael knew it was impossible to get because he wanted it, because what he craved was belonging

And by this point, Michael knew he did not belong

He was too off

Michael opened the door without much doubt while drowning in it

If there was one thing Michael had learned in life it was doing things he did not want to do, sucking it up and pressing onward

Going away mentally and letting his body take the lead

Michael could not read maps, and Mrs. Robinson knew and Michael knew she knew

Michael knew this was not a normal door

This was not a normal hallway

He felt it pulling and pushing at him, his mind, and Michael’s grasp on reality was never very good

Because Michael did not live in reality

Because Michael did not live

He clung to the bits and pieces, the crumbs that made him feel like he shared some kind of experience with somebody

Reality is the same for all, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be?

It was melting now, and Michael’s hands were bloodied and his face wet with tears

There was glass on the carpet but it wasn’t

It wasn’t a carpet either, but it was

The hallway was while it wasn’t as Michael had always been while he hadn’t

It didn’t take long before Michael gave in, gave up, unraveled, dissolved and ceased to be

It took hours, days, years and millenia, and the pain was searing, ripping him apart and it was what he had always wished for, draw the pain out and see the damage, see what was wrong

Michael knew he couldn’t fix, but he always had wanted to see

To see that he was right about being wrong and not just imagining it

Now he was in pieces and wasn’t at all, and was as intensely as he had never been before

As the pieces came together again he panicked at first

But he was put together all wrong, glaringly off, obvious but not

And for the first time in what had never been Michael Shelley’s life he felt right

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should apologise, so I'm really sorry.


End file.
